your heartbeat synched with mine
by mad not sad
Summary: And maybe the mean girl and the golden boy aren't completely wrong for each other after all. - a Ryder/Kitty collection. I take requests!
1. introduction

_your heartbeat synched with mine_

A Ryder/Kitty Collection

..

This is a collection of unrelated Ryder/Kitty oneshots or drabbles. I will primarily be writing in response to requests made or prompts given by YOU! (the reader) So leave a review asking for whatever fic you want me to write, and I just might write it next!

**Prompts can be:**

- a single word or phrase (e.g. "infinite," "cherry," "jealousy," etc.)

- a song lyric or a song

- a quote

- a situation/plot element (e.g. Kitty cheats on her boyfriend with Ryder; Ryder saves Kitty; Kitty has a change of heart; Ryder and Kitty are paired together on a school project; etc.)

- a genre

- anything you want to challenge me to write!

- anything you want to read!

So just leave reviews on this story with your prompt/request, and I will do my best to fulfill all of them. I will post all of them in this story (so favorite and/or follow if you want to stay updated).


	2. awake in your dreams

**A/N**: Thanks for all of your prompts! And feel free to submit more. I am going to try to get to as many of them as I can, though there are several so it may take a while.

This one's a little out there but I liked writing it. Something to think about – which is worse: insomnia or not being able to control your dreams? So, fyi, in this fic Kitty's a little crazy and Ryder's a little creepy. But crazy and creepy are perfect for each other, right?

**For**: Azulakai

**Prompt**: "Legend says when you can't sleep at night it's because you're awake in someone else's dream."

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_awake in your dreams_

..

In. Out. In. Out. In, out, in, out.

She counts her breaths in the dark.

..

"You look horrible," her mother says at the breakfast table, passing her a glass of orange juice.

Kitty glares at her mother, who's always all too ready to offer unwanted advice to Kitty about her appearance. "Jeez, _thanks_, Mom."

But she's secretly grateful for the tube of Chanel concealer. At least now when she struts down the hallways at school no one else will be able to see the shadowy circles under her tired, hollow eyes.

..

Skin. _Soft downy lush smooth so smooth._

Blood. _Pounding rushing hot burning she burns at his touch_.

Breath. _Frantic hurried uneven gasping pleading wanting needing_.

Bones. _Pressed against him he wants to settle into hers_.

He can feel her – run his fingertips over her skin, feel her blood shooting through her veins, taste her breath ghosting over his lips, press himself into her bones.

At night she is so very real to him. She is all skin and blood and breath and bones. He can touch her, he can feel her, he can taste her, he can claim her.

But then he wakes and she has disappeared again, because dreams tend to do that in the morning.

..

"What's with you, man?"

Ryder snaps his head around to look at Jake, seated next to him in glee club. He wrinkles his eyebrows in confusion. "What d'you mean?"

"Why're you so on edge?" Jake questions. "You look a little insane."

Ryder frowns, but when he notices his hands, clenched into fists on the edges of his plastic chair, he has to admit that his friend is right.

He feels like every nerve in his body is wired so tightly that any one of them could snap at the slightest impulse. He feels uneasy and unsteady and he might be about to fall apart.

But it's so hard to keep from looking across the room at her. It's so hard when at night, she presses her lips to his neck in his dreams. At night, Ryder can hold her in his hands and he sometimes thinks he knows every part of her by now.

Of course he doesn't – they're just dreams, after all, and he'd have to be a moron or have a death wish or both if he ever tried to get close enough to actually hold her in real life.

So he lives for the moment every night when he can finally slide into bed, close his eyes, and sink into his dreams.

..

Crickets.

There are crickets outside. They keep up a steady crooning and it's almost comforting, to know that she's not the only one awake at this hour.

_Chirp chirp-chirp chirp chirp-chirp chirp_.

She wishes, she prays, that the soothing sound will lull her to sleep. But all it does is make her more alert. Her mind is racing at a million miles per minute.

She rolls over onto her other side, but she can't get comfortable.

Restlessness.

This is what it's like, when you're an insomniac. This is what it's like, when all you want to do is run far away.

..

He's watching her again.

Kitty can see him out of the corner of her eye. Everyone else in the glee club is watching Finn as he tells them about their new assignment for the week. Everyone that is, except _him_.

She wants to jump up out of her seat and scream at him, loud enough for the whole school to hear: "I see you staring at me! Just stop it! It's driving me crazy!"

But she doesn't, of course, because then she'd _actually_ be classified as crazy, and no one likes a batshit insane girl. It's better if Kitty keeps it all to herself, keeps the crazy inside. And okay, maybe she hasn't been sleeping at night. Sure, maybe she sometimes feels like her mind is whirring so fast that it's about to burst out of her head. Yeah, maybe she occasionally gets so restless that she wants to jump out of her seat, run out the school doors, and sprint across the world until she's so far gone that no one can ever find her.

_Am I crazy?_ she wonders. _Have I actually gone insane?_

Kitty feels his eyes boring into her head and _yes, yes you are_.

..

Secrets.

Sometimes, in his dreams, she tells him secrets. She'll tangle her hands in his hair and bring her lips up to his ear, and he'll feel her hot breath ghosting over his skin as she leans in and whispers.

And then she kisses him and he can feel her sweet, sinful mouth burning into his.

Are they nightmares?

_Yes_, he thinks when he first wakes up and all he can see are images of her, her naked body, her hair wild, her lips red, her eyes stormy, on instant replay, over and over and over in his head.

But then he goes to school and sees her by her locker and _no_, because how could they be nightmares when at least at night he actually gets to hold her? It's the daytime that's the real nightmare. During the day, he has to pretend like he doesn't think about her at all. In real life, he is nothing to her.

That, he knows, is what a nightmare truly is.

..

"What were the causes of the Civil War?"

Ryder jolts to attention when he realizes that his History teacher has just asked him a question.

"Uh," he stalls, because he had foregone his American History reading last night in favor of going to bed early and dreaming of _her_. He knows he's got to be some kind of masochist or something, but he can't find it in himself to try to stop.

His teacher shakes his head. "Please do your homework from now on, Ryder."

Ryder shrugs, a sheepish apology, but he's almost instantaneously distracted by the sight of the sunlight streaming into the classroom and reflecting off her sleek blonde hair. She's seated in the last desk in the row, closest to the windows, and she's staring outside, her chin in her hand.

_What does she see?_ he wonders as he watches her stare at the clouds like they have all the answers.

He gazes at her for the rest of the period, until he's memorized the way her neck curves gracefully into her shoulder, the way her lips part subconsciously as she studies the sky, the way her fingers tap restlessly on her desk.

He's going to fail History.

..

Hot.

She's hot, so hot, so she throws her sheets off her and strips her pajamas off. She lies on top of her bed, clad only in her underwear, but her skin is still sweaty and clammy.

She almost wishes she had a fever, because that would explain why she is burning. That would explain why she can't fall asleep. That would explain why she wants to crawl out of her skin.

But she's not sick – at least, not physically ill. She probably is sick in the mind, of course, because why else would she have these crazy thoughts, racing-racing-racing around until she doesn't know which way is up anymore. She thinks about everything in the world, so much going through her head that it sometimes feels like her brain will explode, but of course her thoughts run in circles and they always lead back to _him_.

She shifts uncomfortably in her bed, but try as she might, she can't cool off.

..

If she ran away, would anyone miss her?

That's just one of the things Kitty is thinking about today.

Maybe she will run away, maybe she will just walk out of the school right now, hop in her car, stop at a pharmacy, buy some hair dye, dye her hair black, change her name, buy a plane ticket, fly to Australia, lose her identity, make a new life, disappear –

She's so lost in her racing-spinning-whirring thoughts that she doesn't watch where she's going. So Kitty is surprised when she suddenly runs into something hard in the crowded school hallway. She reaches out to steady herself, and she feels her hands grab onto someone's soft shirt. She feels his hard, warm body beneath the cloth, and she feels his arms come around her almost protectively.

She looks up.

It's _him_.

_What can I say what should I do I want to run away,_ she thinks desperately.

Her mind is racing at a million miles per minute again when he looks down at her with an implacable look in his brown eyes and opens his mouth to speak. "Sorry," he tells her, but he keeps his arms wrapped around her.

Kitty heaves a deep breath and looks up at him unsteadily. "Apology accepted," she breathes, or did she just think that in her head? She can't be sure.

"You should really pay more attention to your surroundings, though," he tells her, and she glares up at him, then. Who does he think he is?

Anger flares up inside of her, then, and it's a nice feeling, this new, unfamiliar emotion, because she's been feeling nothing but restless and crazy for so long that it feels good to experience something concrete, something biting. "I do pay attention," she snarls, her blood boiling. "I pay enough attention to see you watching me all the time."

He flushes at her pointed comment, and she almost feels bad, which is crazy, because Kitty Wilde doesn't do remorse, not ever. But he quickly recovers and rolls his eyes. "Get over yourself," he tells her scornfully. "I don't _watch_ you."

Kitty scoffs at him. "You're right, maybe I can be a little self-absorbed," she says, and his eyes widen, because he knows that this is uncharted territory. She never concedes. "But at least I'm not a _liar_," she continues, and then she wrenches herself out of his grasp and takes off down the hallway, away from him.

_Run away run away run away_.

..

One. Two. Three. Four.

He's so close to her that he can count the freckles sprinkled onto her face, four of them, hidden there like a little secret that only he knows.

She's so perfect she can hardly be real.

She's not, of course, because only his dream-girl would let him get close enough to her to count her freckles. Well, his real-girl (not _his_, but you know) had been so close to him today that he _had_ counted her freckles, but that had been an accident, an unintended hallway collision, and he'd fucked it up royally.

Not only had he insulted her, but she'd also called him a liar, and, of course, she'd been right.

_You're a liar_, he tells himself when he wakes up the next morning. And that's the first true thing he's said in a while.

..

Ryder leaves math class in the middle of a lesson on polynomials. Because he has to go to the bathroom, or that's what he tells his teacher. (Because class is boring as hell, and he'd rather wander the halls and relive his wonderful, tortuous dreams.)

He's roaming McKinley's halls like a vagabond.

Aimlessness.

Is this all his daily life is now? Every second Ryder's awake, every second he's not dreaming, seems like a pointless waste of time. He wanders through his life these days aimlessly, because the only thing he really knows for certain anymore is the feel of her underneath his fingertips when he's asleep.

He strolls to the tiny hallway in the corner of the third floor and nearly does a double take when he sees _her_, perched on the windowsill at the end of the hall. She's pried the window open so that she's halfway leaning out of the building. Her position looks precarious, like she could fall and drop three stories at any moment, but she doesn't seem to care.

She's staring at the sky again.

Without thinking it through, Ryder walks right up to her.

"Are you crazy? What if you fall?" he's asking her before he can rethink it.

Her head slowly pivots to look at him. Her eyes are slightly bloodshot, and her face looks drawn and fatigued.

She's still beautiful, of course.

"Am I crazy?" she whispers under her breath, seemingly to herself. Then her hazel eyes flick up to meet his and he can feel his world shift beneath his feet. "I might be," she replies. "But mostly I'm just tired."

Ryder leans in closer to her, and he places a hand on her leg to anchor her to the windowsill. He won't let her fall.

She starts at his touch for a second, but then she relaxes and lets him keep his hand there. _There, on her bare skin_. Ryder can hardly believe it. He's finally touching her, and it's so much more potent than any of his dreams ever were.

"Why are you tired?" he asks her softly, bringing his other hand up to brush a tendril of blonde hair out of her weary eyes.

He forgets to breathe for a moment when she leans ever so slightly into his touch. She sighs quietly, and her half-lidded eyes rise languorously to meet his intent gaze.

"I don't sleep anymore," she tells him, her rosy lips forming the words slowly and carefully. "I'm an insomniac."

Ryder swallows and presses his hand more firmly into her leg. "Legend says when you can't sleep at night it's because you're awake in someone else's dream."

She stares up at him with an inscrutable gaze. "Am I awake in your dreams, Ryder?" she murmurs.

His breath catches in his throat and he looks at her, the sunlight glinting off her hair, her eyes fatigued and languid. What can she possibly want him to say to that?

Does she want the truth? Does she want to know that she is the _only_ thing he dreams about these days? Does she want to know that every night, he rakes his hands over her naked body, presses his lips to her neck, meets her mouth in a burning kiss, pushes into her until she's moaning and writhing beneath him?

Ryder almost laughs at how absurd it would be for him to tell her that. So he stays silent, his eyes hooded, watching her warily.

When he doesn't give her an answer, she slips out of his grasp, slides off the windowsill, and glides down the hallway. He watches her go, frozen to his spot, until she disappears around the corner, making him wonder for a second if his dream-girl had made an appearance during the day.

But no, she had been real, this time. This was real, and he stands by the windowsill and looks up at the sky she had been studying. She's gone, now, but Ryder finally answers her question anyway, even though only the clouds can hear. "Yes."

..

In. Out. In. Out. In, out, in, out, _him_.

She can't even count her breaths anymore without thoughts of him creeping in.

..

On Friday after school, Kitty sees him by his locker. She's restless and her mind won't stop racing (_when you can't sleep at night it's because you're awake in someone else's dream am I awake in your dreams_), so she goes up to him and taps him on the shoulder.

He whirls around and to say that his face looks shocked would be an understatement.

"I still can't sleep," she tells him, her mouth twisted into a frown.

He lets out a shaky breath. "I'm sorry," he replies so quietly that it's almost a figment of her imagination.

Is it?

_No_, not when Kitty takes in the way he's looking at her, like he wants to undress her and eat her up, right there on the spot in the crowded after-school hallway.

He doesn't say anything else, just_ looks_ at her with that hungry look in his eyes, and she backs away slowly, before turning around and fleeing out to the parking lot. _Run away_.

..

Skin. Blood. Breath. Bones. _Her_.

He wakes up with a jolt, sweat coating his skin, his breath coming out in jagged, heaving gasps.

_Kitty_.

..

It's a Saturday night and there's a party. A party at some cheerleader's house. He doesn't know her, doesn't care to know her. There's only one cheerleader he wants to know.

Of course, he does know Kitty, better than anyone else, probably, he thinks sometimes, but that's a dangerous train of thought, so he stops himself.

"Yo, Ryder, want a beer?" one of his teammates yells at him over the thumping music.

Ryder shakes his head. There's too much noise, too many people pressing against him, too many smells, too many things going on inside the crowded room. "I'm going outside for some air," he tells his friends, and then he slips through the crowd, making for the front door.

As soon as he opens the door, he is assaulted by a wave of cool night air, and he breathes it in deeply, thankful for the respite from the stale, hot, alcohol-heavy air inside the house. He closes the door behind him and wanders out onto the front porch.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ryder sees a figure, perched precariously on the railing of the porch, legs dangling off the side.

He knows instantly that it's Kitty.

He creeps up behind her and reaches out a hand to rest gently on her waist. He won't let her fall.

She doesn't turn around to look at him or flinch at his touch. Instead, she leans back against his chest, and he wraps his other arm around her so that she's nestled into him, tucked between his shoulders and his chin.

"Do you ever think," she asks him, "about running away?"

Ryder shakes his head. "No," he replies. "I'd have nowhere to go."

"I think about it," Kitty tells him. "I think about it all the time. And I wonder, if I ran away, would anyone miss me?"

He lets out a shuddering breath and holds her tighter, drawing her back against him so that his mouth is pressed into the top of her head. "Kitty," he breathes into her hair. "Don't run away."

She twists her neck to look up at him then, her eyes wide and shining in the moonlight. Her skin is soft and downy and he can see the four freckles sprinkled onto her face.

"Please don't," he whispers, and he can feel her bones pressing against him.

"I'm tired," Kitty sighs, and her eyes are so weary that he wants to cry for her.

"I know," he responds soothingly, and then he cradles her to him and he doesn't think he'll ever let go.

She slides down from the porch railing and grabs his hand, and she leads him out to the street. Her steps are slow and shaky, and she hasn't slept in ages so he reaches down and scoops her up into his arms, easy as anything. Ryder carries her to his car, and they drive to her house. The car glides down sleeping suburban streets, and outside it is so quiet and still that it feels like they are the only two souls awake in the whole world.

She sneaks him in the back door of her house and holds a finger to her lips as she motions for him to follow her in creeping up the stairs. He tiptoes down the hallway so they won't wake her parents, and then she leads him into her bedroom and he shuts the door behind him.

Kitty brings him over to her bed and kneels on top of it, facing him. She takes a deep breath. "I think about you all the time," she whispers in the darkness. "It's like, my mind is always spinning, my body is always on fire, and I can't sleep because you're always in my thoughts."

He shivers at her words and draws a sharp breath. "Kitty," he breathes.

"I'm so restless, all the time," she tells him, sounding like she's about to cry from frustration.

Ryder runs a hand through her wavy hair and takes a step toward her, so that he's pressed against her. Her arms go up around his neck and he leans his forehead against hers. "You're lucky," he tells her in a low voice. "I wish I couldn't fall asleep."

She frowns, puzzled. "Why?"

"Because every night when I fall asleep, my dreams are full of you," whispers Ryder. "And they're so goddamn perfect, but then I wake up and I see you at school and I know that none of it ever really happened."

He's almost worried that she'll shrink away from him, disturbed at his admission that he dreams about her constantly, but she stays put. "I don't remember the last time I dreamed," Kitty sighs wistfully.

And then she's pulling back, and he worries that he's lost her, but she reaches up a shaky hand to his face. She traces the lines of his cheekbones, his jaw, his lips, staring up at him in wonder.

Then she kisses him, soft and slow and sweet. She tangles her hands in his hair and she kisses him, and it's a million times more vivid and breathtaking than it's ever been in his dreams.

Ryder pulls Kitty to him and kisses her back. He pours months of frustration and longing and passion and desire into her, and she responds enthusiastically, pulling him down onto the bed with her.

And then it's like this:

Skin. _Soft downy lush smooth so smooth._

Blood. _Pounding rushing hot burning she burns at his touch_.

Breath. _Frantic hurried uneven gasping pleading wanting needing_.

Bones. _Pressed against him he wants to settle into hers_.

But it's also like this:

"Ryder," she sighs, and she's real this time, so real that he can feel his name in his bones when she says it.

"I'll never run away," she promises, pressing the words into his chest so that they wrap around his heart.

"_Oh_," she gasps, and the sight of her coming undone is more beautiful than he'd ever dreamt it could be.

"You aren't crazy," he whispers into her hair later, when her head is rested on his shoulder, his hand stroking evenly over her skin. "I think you're perfect."

Kitty sighs contentedly and it's almost too much for him then. This, all of this, is so real and so wonderful and so perfect and so beautiful that he doesn't know what to do with himself. He's used to only being happy, only feeling any sense of purpose, when he's asleep and dreaming. He's used to feeling lost and aimless when he's awake. But now it's like dreams and reality have flipped and melded into each other, and it's so startling and new that Ryder has to hold her tighter to make sure she's really there.

"Kitty," he murmurs, and she nestles into his side, her breath slowing into a steady rhythm. He watches the soft rise and fall of her chest and he feels peaceful. She is real. This is real.

..

She sleeps.

..


End file.
